The cyanobacterial bloom's occurrence in sources of public supplying harms water quality, even causing cianotoxins presence. The difficulty of the cianotoxins removal from the water has motivated the present work, which objective was to evaluate the removal of the cianotoxin microcystin through the use of different powdered activated carbons (PACs). The PACs were characterized according to its iodine number, granulometry, distribution and volume of pores, besides the Freundlich isotherms. The results showed that the wood PACs presented the highest values of iodine number, maximum adsorptive capacity (qe, max) and volume of secondary micropores and mesoporos. The adequate characterization of the PACs is an important stage in its acquisition by the water treatment plants, because isolated indices can not evaluate the PACs correctly.
microcystin; Freundlich isotherm; adsoption; powdered activated carbon
